1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a laundry treating apparatus having a door for opening and closing a laundry inlet of a body.
2. Background
A laundry treating apparatus may include an apparatus for washing laundry, an apparatus for drying laundry, and an apparatus capable of performing washing and drying operations at the same time. In a laundry treating apparatus, the washing of laundry may be a cycle of removing contaminants adhered to the laundry through the action of water and detergent, and the drying of laundry may be a cycle of removing moisture contained in the laundry through a hot air supply device provided in the laundry treating apparatus.
A typical laundry treating apparatus may include a body configured to form an appearance thereof and provided with a laundry inlet, a laundry accommodation portion or space provided within the body, a drive unit (or drive) configured to rotate a drum constituting the laundry accommodation portion, a door configured to open and close the laundry inlet, and a control unit (or controller) configured to display visual information associated with a cycle treated on the laundry treating apparatus for a user and receive the user's input.
Such a typical laundry treating apparatus has been designed to perform an inherent function capable of opening and closing the laundry inlet and viewing the laundry accommodation portion. Furthermore, the control unit may typically be provided on the body, and provided with a plurality of buttons or knobs to briefly display only predetermined cycles in an on/off manner or the like, and manipulating them.
The differentiation between a door and a control unit has been a hindrance to the simple appearance of the laundry treating apparatus, and input and output interfaces between the laundry treating apparatus and the user have been more likely to stay in a low-level manner.
As a result, studies for placing the control unit on a door, and implementing the control unit with a touch screen have been carried out. The related technologies can be also found in the Korean Patent Publication Nos. 10-2011-0130089 (published on Dec. 5, 2011) and 10-2015-0006264 (published on Jan. 16, 2015) whose disclosures are hereby incorporated by references in their entirety. However, studies on an integrated aesthetic sense for the door and touch screen as well as on a door structure capable of arousing advanced sensibility at low cost are still not entirely satisfactory.
In order to couple a door cover to a door frame, an adhesive is typically used along with a mechanical fastening structure using a bracket, a hook or the like. However, when a door cover with a glass material is used to give a high-quality feeling, it may be difficult to use such a mechanical fastening structure. Moreover, when the door cover is formed in a circular shape, it may be difficult to align a correct installation position for the door frame.
Furthermore, the adhesive may be leaked during the process of coupling a door cover to a door frame through the adhesive, thereby causing the deterioration of appearance quality. In order to prevent the problem, the adhesive may be coated at an inner side of the door frame located far away from an edge portion thereof, which may result in the deterioration of the joint strength, and have a problem of causing foreign substances to easily be infiltrated through a gap between the door cover and the door frame.
When the door has a configuration of opening and closing a laundry inlet, when a touch screen is provided on the door, moisture may likely leak into electronic elements constituting the touch screen. Accordingly, the sealing of the electronic elements may be a key point in the aspect of securing the reliability of driving the touch screen.